


The World That Was Ours

by basketoflightning



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Pining, Plenty of Awkwardness, Sexual Tension, This is going to be a long one, sakura begins to see her old sensei in a different light, sort of arranged marriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-11 12:02:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13523850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basketoflightning/pseuds/basketoflightning
Summary: Sakura was a married woman now, wasn't she? Married women weren’t supposed to have these thoughts about their weird former sensei with an eccentric porn habit. And they certainly weren’t supposed to act on them.





	1. Chapter 1

There was a certain feeling that went around after the war that couldn’t quite be put into words. It was the sound practically dancing on the tip of everybody’s tongues, and yet nobody thought to outright acknowledge it. Not to Sakura’s face, anyway. But she knew it as well as they did: repopulation was on the cards, and there was a quota to fill. 

Originally, Sakura had thought Tsunade-sama was joking when she broached the idea to her. The concept sounded mind-bogglingly ridiculous, like something out of a bizarre dystopian budget-TV flick. Forcing all shinobi to be taken off active duty in the field until they’d conceived at least one child… Things like that didn’t happen in real life. A world like that would barely even be the Konoha that Sakura had always known.

And for a while she’d thought things were beginning to go back to how they’d used to be. Team 7 weren’t together again, not yet - of course nobody in their right mind was going to let Sasuke just appear again and run around like he’d only popped out of the village for a pint of milk. But if she tried hard enough, she could ignore the tracking band firmly embedded into his ankle and try not to watch him slowly be allowed to walk the streets only with supervision. He wasn’t quite the old Sasuke, she knew. But what was left of him had returned.

So things could have almost been normal if the Repopulation hadn’t been put into place.

Of course, from a tactical perspective, it all added up. The village had been… well, _deprived_ of the world’s most powerful tool, after all, and it only seemed natural to want to stock up. It was in the best interest of the whole of Konoha it have a shinobi population as least enough to rival most of the other villages. And making another generation of powerful shinobi would really appear to be a job best done by shinobi themselves. Maybe Sakura had made it pretty far without a bloodline, but something like that could surely only help. So, yeah, on paper it made complete sense. 

In practise?

Watching all of her friends get married in the space of two months was really _weird._

Naruto and Hinata were married first, much to everybody’s amazement. It was only around two weeks after The Announcement before Naruto was excitedly popping up just about everywhere and anywhere there were people, just to tell them the news. And from what Sakura had heard, it hadn’t even been his idea. The Hyuuga heiress had somehow managed to plant the idea in his head all by herself. And before her family could even react, they’d both done their duty and Sakura was stuck inside one of the only semi-formal dresses she still owned - a stuffy, two-sizes too tight monstrosity of a thing - and watching them exchange rings.

“Better stock up on your formal wear, Forehead,” Ino had whispered too-loudly from beside her as the couple kissed. “This won’t be the last wedding you attend in the next year.”

Ino probably had already had an inkling of just how right she was going to be, because it was only eight days later that she had switched places with Hinata into a wedding kimono. Ino and Sai sounded somehow even weirder as a married couple than Naruto and Hinata, but apparently this was reality now, because nobody else even seemed to question it. This time, Sakura had dressed somewhat better, she thought. The little green dress that came down just to her knees didn’t clash _so_ outrageously with her hair, and it was at least semi-likely to hide any food stains from any wedding buffet related incidents.

The buffet, of course, was where she was to be found immediately after the ceremony was over. There was nothing to hide her own worry about finding her own match better than a few plates of finger food. And nothing tasted sweeter than knowing it was coming right out of her friend’s pocket.

“Enjoying the onigiri, Sakura?” 

She turned. “Kakashi-sensei.”

He wasn’t eating himself, simply leaning against the edge of the buffet table. The fluorescent cover of _Icha Icha_ seemed to clash with not only her former teacher’s suit but just about everything in this whole venue. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you here,” she said, feeling somewhat conscious of the three giant globs of rice sticking to her paper plate. “I thought you’d be busy.”

“Busy?"

“Yeah,” Sakura replied. “You know. With everything that’s going on.”  


With the Repopulation. That was the unspoken thought running amok like lightning between them - between everyone. He was certainly too busy to come to their weekly Team 7 catch-ups, she thought, only letting the _teeniest tiniest_ bit of irritation enter her thoughts.

“Oh, so you meant that kind of _busy._ ”

Kakashi’s voice dipped with the emphasis on the final word, and—

“No!” she exclaimed.A few people turned to look at her and she coughed loudly. “No, I just meant… we all are. With what’s going on. I didn’t mean to imply… anything.”

_Yeah, Sakura, go on. Explain further to your former teacher how you hadn’t quite meant to imply he was spreading his seed to the whole of Konoha in an attempt to procreate. That’ll go down perfectly._

“No, you’re perfectly right. I’m very _busy_.” Kakashi’s eye seemed to twinkle with some kind of amusement. “It’s keeping me up all night.”

“Sensei—“

“Lots of paperwork to do,” he explained cheerfully. 

Alright, now he was just teasing her. The bastard.

“Jerk,” she said, shovelling a whole fistful of rice into her open mouth. “Ijusmwantknohowdo.”

“Sorry, Sakura-chan, I’m afraid I don’t speak glutton-ease.”

“Shut up,” she re-iterated, chewing through her comfort food. “I just wanted to know how you were doing. I didn’t see you at Hinata and Naruto’s wedding.”

“You must have just missed me.” He shrugged.

“You were there?”

“I wouldn’t miss my second-favourite student’s wedding,” he replied cheerfully. “Even if I were especially _busy.”_

Sakura didn’t even have the energy to react to his awful teasing this time, letting the glare do all of the work for her. “Your second favourite?”

“Please, Sakura. You know I rank you all on how likely you are to eventually stab me at any given point.”

She blinked. “What, so am I first or third?”

“It changes on the day,” he informed her, sounding quite serious. “Right now I’m gambling that you’re still ranking as my favourite.”

“I don’t know, the temptation is there.” Even as she tried to act irritated, she couldn’t help the little rush of mini-Sakuras in her belly doing backflips over the tiny amount of praise. Even if that kind of praise was coming a good ten years too late. 

She didn’t mention that to him, of course. Instead she watched as he carefully placed Icha Icha back into his pocket and began to fill his plate with a precise selection of the Ino-Sai wedding buffet. 

“Now I see why you’re here, Kakashi-sensei,” she said with a grin. “The free food.”

He continued to pick up various bits of salted meat for inspection. “It’s a perk. I’m simply taking advantage of it.”

“Are you finally going to eat in front of me, sensei?”

“The food will keep till later, I’m sure,” he replied dryly.

As amusing as it was to watch his food-related stratagem, Kakashi still hadn’t answered her question. As far as she knew, the Repopulation was a village-wide order. A top priority mission for every Konoha ninja, and something of enough importance for Tsunade to impose a hiatus on all non-essential missions.

So, then, Kakashi-sensei had to be worried about this too. Someone as ridiculously private as that man couldn’t not be stressing about the idea of being willed into doing pretty much _anything._ And even if he’d somehow managed to wriggle out of it… well, Sakura damn well needed advice. It was hard not to when the biggest decision of her life was approaching rapidly and everybody else seemed to be acting as if everything was well and good.

So she took a deep breath.

“Kakashi-sensei—“

When she turned to look him in the eye, he was gone. As usual.

* * *

Things showed no sign of slowing down after that. Not long after Ino and Sai, more and more marriages were announced. More and more of her friends - the same friends she was a 12-year-old genin with only ten years ago - became husband-and-wife. It was almost like something in her mind never learned how to process all of this information correctly because the weeks seemed to float by in a thoughtless haze. The ban on all childless ninjas capable of baring or conceiving children serving on active duty didn’t quite extend to Sakura’s lengthy stints at the hospital, so excluding the odd field trip to kick some bad guys in the butt, things were almost normal for her everyday routine. If it wasn’t for the chunky list of wedding invitations she had sitting on her kitchen counter in her apartment, Sakura would've almost been able to ignore everything going on. Almost.

It took Tsunade asking her directly for the real problem to be addressed.

“Sakura,” she said, almost quite gently. 

Immediately, Sakura knew something was wrong. Tsunade would never speak to her so softly unless she had terrible, terrible news or the world was about to end. Maybe both.

“Yes, shishou?”

“I think you know what I’m about to say, Sakura.” Tsunade looked down at the papers sitting at the desk in front of her, and then back up to Sakura again. “You’ve had over a month now since the announcement was made public.”

“Shishou?”

Something in Sakura’s stomach began to turn.

“The Repopulation, Sakura. You know what I need you to do.”

Maybe it was the end of the world. The end of Sakura’s world, at least.

“Shishou… I…” Sakura could only stumble over her own lips. 

“I’ll be frank with you,” Tsunade said, running a hand though her hair. “I need you back on active duty as soon as humanly possible. But more importantly than that, the council and I both agree that we need as many children from those that can bear them for the sake of the village. And there aren’t that many shinobi of child-bearing age left around, you know.”

Everything seemed to swim around in Sakura’s vision. “Yes, shishou…”

“You know I can’t— well, I at least won’t outright force you. But you can’t just continue to ignore them problem, and I can’t be seen to be making an exception on this policy just for my apprentice.” Tsunade scowled, mostly to herself. “The council certainly wouldn’t like that.”

Of course Sakura wanted to argue. More than anything. But the way Tsunade-shishou spoke about it all gave it the appearance of being so frustratingly reasonable, as if Sakura was the irritating one for not already being two months pregnant without a word of complaint. And if even her shishou showed no sign of budging, no sign of changing her mind… something within Sakura seemed to snap. 

“Yes, shishou,” she said dully, for what seems like the ten thousandth time.

Tsunade sighed, maybe even more deeply than Sakura had ever heard before. “Go home and get some sleep, Sakura. But I need you to think about what I’ve said.”

* * *

 

She certainly did think about it. So much that it seemed to tangle itself up in her dreams, leaving Sakura with dreams of some weird stranger being assigned to marry her or no sleep at all. She almost preferred the latter, honestly.

But the days showed no sign of stopping their unreal march towards the future Sakura really, really didn’t want to think about.

“You should just go for it, Sakura-chan,” Naruto informed her with a wide grin. “Just do it! It’s great!”

They were sitting in a local budget coffee shop. The actual coffee had never been _great_ , but it had been one of the only ones not to close down for refurbishment after the war. So it had seemed as good a place as any to pick for the weekly catch-ups she’d decided on, which were in turn a great excuse for her to keep an extra eye on her two teammates. Which seemed all the more important recently, seeing as one was an newlywed without any form of romantic experience and the other one was an ex-defector and S-rank capture target for the very same village they were in.

It was really no wonder that Sakura needed the weekly dose of coffee.

“I’m not going to ‘just do it,” she replied to Naruto with a huff. “Not everyone can just roll out of bed and get married to the nearest Hyuuga heiress, you know.”

“But everything worked out so perfectly!” Naruto replied, beaming. “When the whole ‘make a bunch of babies’ mission thing started, I was totally against it. But after Hinata asked me to team up with her, everything just kinda make sense, dattebayo!"

Naruto nodded along to his own words sagely, as if he hadn’t just talked about marrying his wife as if she was the latest A-Rank mission he’d been assigned to. Honestly, sometimes Sakura despaired.

“These things require thought, idiot.” Compared to Naruto’s excited barrage of a voice, Sasuke’s tone sounded even more quiet than it usually had been as of late. 

He’d been back five months now and yet the three of them were still desperately trying to figure out their old dynamic. After everything, things had changed. Sakura just hadn’t quite figured out by how much yet. 

Naruto was… always just Naruto, of course. In a way, he was the same little kid she’d scowled at every day in the academy. She could just see him a whole lot better now. But Sasuke? She’d never been able to read him as well as she would have liked, she had to admit. Even as a 12 year old in the academy his thoughts had been a mystery to her as much as she’d fantasised about pretending otherwise. So what chance did she have of understanding him now, after so many things had changed? After he’d gone from her teammate to her enemy to a stranger, and now become… whatever the quiet, stoic man sitting in the corner across from her was.

She hoped he was attending all of his mandatory therapy sessions. Or she hoped at least that the guard stuck with following Sasuke around at all times was at least encouraging him to. From what Sakura could see, the poor guy was currently waiting for Sasuke outside, faced with the cool morning’s air and a lack of caffeine stimulants. Whatever short straw he had drawn to get this as a mission hadn’t been short enough.

“That’s why I’m a winner who’s going back on active duty soon and you two are stuck here doing paperwork,” Naruto said, pulling a face more befitting of a five year old than a married man. “I got given a mission and Hinata and I nailed it together. So there.”

Sasuke didn’t reply to that, simply sipping his black coffee in silence. Silence was an amenity the three of them rarely shared these days. Sasuke radiated it now more than ever, but there was something in his silences that made both Sakura and Naruto feel the need to fill them with whatever words they might find. 

But for once she was too pre-occupied. Because at the end of the day, Naruto might have had a point.

“You’re all coming to Lee’s wedding, aren’t you?” she interjected quickly, desperate to think about somebody else’s future but her own. The question was more of a demand than an inquiry, anyway.

Both boys made a slow grunting noise Sakura could only assume was a yes. Well, it better have had been, anyway.

“Who’s that guy marrying anyway?” Naruto asked with an exaggerated look of surprise. “He found someone to Repopulate with?”

“Some girl,” Sasuke said, as if that brief summary settled the matter in its entirety. “I think she was from the year above us.”

“I guess everyone’s running out of people to pair up with, huh,” Naruto said, scratching his head. “Good job I got in there pretty quickly. But hey, Sakura-chan. I thought Lee would have asked you first.”

Sakura had never quite put it into words before, but admittedly she had to admit she’d been thinking the same. After the amount of times Lee had showed up at her door with an out-of-tune banjo and flowers after watching one too many cheesy romantic movies, it had seemed like she would have maybe been at least _near_ the top of his list. And yet here she was, throughly un-married and with a wedding invitation to his own celebration sat in her apartment.

She felt selfish even to think about something like that, anyway. And it wasn’t as if she would have said _yes_ if Lee were to have asked her. As sweet as he was, spending the rest of her life - or at least the nine months of her pregnancy - beside him wasn’t quite what Sakura was looking for. The lack of an offer simply punctured a few more holes into her sinking ship.

“Yeah,” Sakura eventually replied, trying to keep most of the misery out of her voice. “Who knows?” 

“Kakashi.” Sasuke’s eyes flickered around the room.

“What?” Sakura asked, following his gaze with her own.

“He’s not coming,” Sasuke concluded. His pause almost made Sakura believe that he had more to say, but the words stop dead right there.

“You invited him, didn’t you? Sakura-chan?” Naruto looked at her with a pout.

She couldn’t help but to roll her eyes. “Of course I did. I put a note through his door every week or so reminding him that we’re doing this.”

Maybe there three of them were hungering for Team 7 to be what it had been before, but it wasn’t apparent that Kakashi shared the same sentiment. Only a few months ago she’d really thought they had shared something during the war: Naruto, Kakashi, and Sakura. The three of them had been a team. At one point, she’d even managed to convince Kakashi to eat out with them every other week and not _always_ skip the bill.

“Hey, hey, I know why Kakashi-sensei is suddenly so busy,” Naruto bursted out, grinning like somebody had offered him a year’s supply of ramen. “Maybe he got himself a wife too.”

The thought of it alone was almost enough to make Sakura giggle along. “You think?”

“No, I’m serious!” Naruto’s face bobbed up and down, apparently in deep and serious thought. “Everyone has to do it now, right? And it’s so great that I know I wanna spend all my time with Hinata. So the same probably happened to Kakashi-sensei.”

The idea of Kakashi - their former teacher, Kakashi - being lovestruck and doting towards anyone, let alone a lover, would have Sakura in stitches if she had entertained it long enough.

“I think they only things Kakashi-sensei would ever swoon over are his pervy books,” Sakura said, shaking her head at the thought.

“Sakura’s right,” Sasuke agreed, and if even he found the idea ludicrous then it had to be true. “That old pervert will never get married.”

Naruto made a sound of indignation, as if to argue. But no more sentences came between the three of them, leaving only the sole word of ‘marriage’ to hang in the air like an open wound. Maybe it wasn’t bothering Naruto, but…

She tried to keep the conversation at least somewhat light after that. Whether Naruto gets it or not, he was more than happy to chatter and natter on all about the _Top Five Things Hinata Does As A Wife_ for another hour or so. Sasuke still didn't speak as often as any of them would like, but he still seemed to listen in between sipping at his coffee cup. Somehow Sakura got the feeling he had bigger things on his mind than this whole Repopulation assignment. Maybe one day he’d even think about sharing it with the two of them.

By the time Sakura got home, she somehow had even more to think about.

* * *

It had been a particularly bad night of sleep when she was awoken one morning by the ringing of the doorbell.

“I’m coming,” she called out, her voice echoing through her empty apartment. “Two seconds.”

The search to find wearable pants seemed impossible for a brief moment, but Sakura always had been a determined one.

_BRRRRRRRING. BRRRRRRING._

_“_ I said I’m coming,” she grumbled at the noisy doorbell, making her way to it with less grace than a ninja should likely have wielded. “Why don’t you just hold your horses for a second?”

The flickering, out-of-order lights that made up her apartment’s corridor bursted through her front door as she opened it. But more importantly like that was the Sasuke shaped figure standing firmly in her doorway. Beside him stood a slightly shorter figured dressed in a typical Jōnin’s uniform - his guard and jailor, Sakura realised. She didn’t recognise the face of this one.

“Sakura,” Sasuke said, with an acknowledging nod.

“Sasuke…?” she replied, still not quite sure if she was one hundred percent _definitely_ awake or not. “You’re up early.”

“It’s eleven in the morning,” he said, his voice neutral.

“Oh,” she said, as if this wasn’t entirely news to her. “Can I get you something?”  


There’s a pause that went on just a second too long. Her mind searched for answers as Sasuke opened his mouth, but his simply breathed deeply and then closed it again. 

“Do you mind,” he asked softly, “if I come in?”

She didn’t mind, per se, but there was a wave of embarrassment that washed over her as she plucked at the sleeve of her pyjama top. “Um, yeah, sure.” She cast a glance at Sasuke’s guard. “Do—“

“Aki will stay out here,” Sasuke interrupted sharply, not even bothering to look at the other man. 

“Uchiha—“

“I’m wearing the damned tags,” Sasuke said, rolling his eyes. “Sakura will make sure I don’t put a toe out of line.”

Sakura shot an apologetic glance at the guard, but he’d already given up and resigned himself to slouching against the outside wall of her apartment with a sigh.

She let Sasuke in, but it struck Sakura just how strongly he looked out of place perching on the edge of her comfy old sofa. He reached out a hand and examined the cover of the book half-finished on her coffee table - _Icha Icha: Matchmaker_ , to her great embarrassment, before placing it quickly back down with a small frown.

“I didn’t think you were the type to read stuff like that,” he commented, his voice not too rough but suitably shaken nevertheless. “What, did Kakashi’s pervert ways rub off on you?”

A long, long time ago she would have practically died at the idea of Sasuke Uchiha catching her reading _porn_ in her own living room, but now Sakura simply creased her forehead. “Um, no. It’s not all porn.”

“What?”

“Some of Jiraiya’s later stuff is quite sensual,” she forced out, the words even more awkward than they sounded in her head. “It’s just romance, really.”

“Hm.”

Well, Sasuke clearly just heavily judged her for her choice in fine literature. But he didn't openly press the subject or attack any further, simply avoiding eye contact with the bounded tome still sitting in plain view. The Sasuke she used to know might have continued, but this one simply gave up.

“Can I get you something?” she offered, quickly trying to salvage the situation. “Tea? Coffee? Anything?”

She used her fingers to check off each option as she counted through them, but he didn't even meet her eyes. “No, thank you.”

Sasuke laced his hands together on his lap, his body still. The only sound in the whole apartment was the monotonous ticking of the old manual clock she’d gotten as a birthday present years and years ago. The heavy drum of its constant beat only seemed to get louder and louder as they sat in silence.

“Sasuke…?” she asked, as gently as possible. “Did you come here for a reason?”

Sakura didn’t mean to push him. But there was clearly _something_ on his mind, and if he was finally beginning to open up to her, there was no reason to give him a chance to delay. Every second that she sat still, watching unspoken words play out in his head, was a second she could have been trying to understand. And if she could begin to understand, then maybe… maybe things could begin to be the same as before.

“A reason…” Sasuke said, his voice little higher that a murmur. “Yes. I have been thinking.”

It took all of her strength not to shoot back a faux-surprised comment on his use of brain skills. Now was not the time for snark. “Yes?”

Sasuke still wasn’t looking her in the eyes. “I want you to marry me.”

In that moment, she would have sworn the clock on the shelf stopped its ticking.

“Marry me,” Sakura repeated, the words empty.

“Yes,” Sasuke said, nodding along. “Now that I’ve… returned, it seems natural to want to begin rebuilding. And the Repopulation is the most effective time for attempting to restore my clan. You need a partner, and I need somebody to bear my heirs.”

Sakura was barely listening. _Marrymemarrymemarryme_. Coming from Sasuke’s mouth, the words did not even begin to make sense. 

On one hand, this was… this was finally _everything she had ever dreamed of_. Every moment of her waking existence as a pre-teen had been dedicated to this moment. Sakura had imagined in so many times, in so many different ways, and now it was finally happening. Sasuke Uchiha had just proposed to her. Proposed. To her.

And on the other hand, this was finally everything she _had_ ever dreamed of. Sasuke had been gone. For years and years he’d been her _enemy_ , technically. In those years Sakura had grown. She was an adult now. She was more than just the lovesick girl that followed him around everywhere. She was the girl that could bring people back from the brink of death and punch holes through 20-foot walls. She was the Hokage’s apprentice, not some lovesick genin.

Of course she was a different person now. But then again, she hadn’t been counting on the Repopulation. ‘ _You know what I need you to do_ ’, Tsunade had said. There wasn’t a choice in the end. Sakura would have to marry someone and it was time she faced it. If her village needed her, this was her duty as a shinobi. 

And it wasn’t as if she was swimming with offers. Even Lee and Naruto were married men. If Tsunade heard Sakura had _refused_ an offer… she didn’t want to think of how disappointed her master would be.

“Plus,” Sasuke continued, as if he couldn't see the whirlwind of thoughts spinning through her mind. “You’re in love with me. From what I’ve observed, that tends to help with successful marriages.”

_You’re in love with me._ Like she was still that girl who’d confessed everything on that dark night. 

“I didn’t even realise you'd been included in the Repopulation conscription.” Sakura forced her thoughts out into words, albeit slowly. “I thought—“

Sasuke shook his head before she could even finish. “I was re-instated as a genin last month, if you recall. As long as they are above age, genin have to reproduce too.”

The way Sasuke spoke about it all was so matter of fact. As if this whole situation wasn’t insane.

“We’ll make a good enough match,” he continued, as if that was what was bothering Sakura the most. “You don’t have an exceptional bloodline. Or any bloodline at all. But if your chakra control is hereditary, that could be a great asset to future Uchiha generations.”

He looked directly into her eyes at that, as if he had just paid her a great compliment. _Ah, yes. True romance._ And to think that Sasuke had disapproved of her reading _Icha Icha_.

And yet, Sakura found her too-dry mouth opening without permission. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, drawing out the one syllable. “I’ll do it. We’ll get married.”

And just like that, there was a giant pressure that seemed to relieve itself from her shoulders. Sasuke stayed for a while more, mostly to sort out the arrangements they would have to make in the near future. Living at the Uchiha compound would be easier, he argued, with a look around at her apartment (which was feeling increasingly more cramped by the second.) Sakura would have to make the announcement soon so they could schedule a wedding date that didn’t clash with anybody else. And most embarrassingly, _birth control._ Only two hours ago, Sakura would never have been able to imagine a situation where the words ‘fertilisation’ left Sasuke’s mouth that didn’t involve the academy retroactively deciding they needed to come back and get a proper scientific education. And now he was talking all about _condoms_ and _the pill_ and _contraception._ Most horrifyingly of all, he talked about how they wouldn’t need any of those things.

By the time Sasuke left, Sakura needed to go into hibernation. Possibly for several years, or at least until this Repopulation thing had gone away forever.

* * *

It only took a few hours for Sakura to get desperate enough to find the nearest bar and plant herself firmly inside of it.

“Congratulations, Forehead!” Ino squealed, unable to contain a squawk of laugher. “I was gonna say, you know, ‘always the bridesmaid, never the bride’. But you did it! And you got Sasuke, of all people.”

The way Ino talked about the Repopulation makes it seem like a particularly risky lucky dip and not a tactical village-wide strategy to reclaim lost resources. But then, hey, that was always Ino for you. Even with the girls having sat in their (or, at least, Ino’s) favourite booth at the noisiest bar in town, somehow Ino’s voice still managed to solidify itself as the loudest in the room. By contrast, hearing Hinata was a lot more tricky.

“Congratulations,” Hinata piped up. “I think that’s pretty much everyone we know either married or engaged now, isn’t it?”

“Nearly,” Ino said, nodding knowingly. “I mean, people like Shino are never going to have that much luck—“

“Actually, I think Shino’s engaged,” Hinata replied, sipping at her drink. “Some civilian girl. I, um, heard she collects spiders or something.”

Ino pulled a face. “Gross. Two bug fetishists together.” But she laughed anyway, turning back to Sakura with a clap on the back that was a touch too hard. “When’s the wedding?”

“Two weeks or so.” Sakura reached into her bag to pull out some invitation cards Sasuke had gotten made in what felt like no time at all. “It’s… so soon, isn’t it?”

The two girls shook their heads.

“Nah,” Ino replied, having excitedly tugged the invitation out of Sakura’s hands. “It was, like, a four day wait for me. Two weeks is forever.”

At the rate time was flying, it certainly wasn’t feeling like forever.

“Are you excited?” Hinata asked, more softly.

Sakura frowned. “Excited?”

“To get married, of course,” Ino tacked on the end. “Maybe you’ll finally even get some.”

Usually Ino talking so lewdly wouldn’t even cause Sakura to bat an eye, but after hearing Sasuke discuss the same things… Sakura couldn't help but to choke a little on her pina colada. 

“Whoah, easy there, virgin,” Ino said, shaking her head. “Don’t choke before you even get into Sasuke’s bed. He’ll probably be into that anyway, I’m guessing.”

This time it was Hinata’s turn to splutter too, but Ino barely even noticed.

“Sai’s not nearly as into anything kinky as I’d really like,” Ino continued with a whine. “You’d really think he’d be more interested in using those cool ink techniques to whip me up some really hot ropes or something, but nooooooo. None of that.” She sighed with the melodramatic air of a bridge left at the altar. “Anyway, Hinata: we have to know. How’s Naruto?”

Hinata swallowed. “Um, he’s fine. He’s just eating ramen and watching TV at home, I think.”

Ino shook her head as if she was talking to a baby. “No, silly. We mean how is Naruto?” Just in case Hinata suddenly reverted to have the comprehension skills of a two year old, Ino made a lewd gesture with her hands. “Like, in bed. I’ve always wanted to know.”

“I-Ino-chan!” Hinata looked as if she was about to faint.

“Ino,” Sakura groaned. “I really, really don’t want to hear this. Ever.”

“Nooo, come on,” the Yamanaka teased. “I just want to know. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

Sakura nudged her shoulder with a pointed elbow, which elicited a howl of pain far too over-the-top to be even close to realistic. Poor Hinata still looked like she was on the verge of death, and yet it only took Ino a twenty second period of moaning and huffing about to bounce back.

“Anyway! I’m thinking our girl Forehead deserves a toast.” Ino chimed on her class with her long fingernails. “To Sakura! Or the future Mrs Uchiha.”

Hinata’s polite clap was almost entirely drowned out by Ino’s excited woo. Half of the bar turned sharply to look at their booth in confusion. And to think, Ino had only really had one cocktail.

“What, Kakashi’s little shinobi is getting married already?”

Sakura looked up from Ino’s cheering face to see none of than Genma hovering over their booth, drink in hand. He smiled with some kind of mirth as her eyes filled with recognition. 

“Genma,” Ino said, her eyelashes already fluttering. “Just my favourite sight to see on a drunken night.”

The older man laughed. “Careful, Yamanaka. You’re a married woman now.”

Ino pouted into her drink. “You’re no fun. Sai would understand that I’m only playing.”

Sakura wasn’t actually quite sure just how far Sai would understand, but she didn't quite have the energy after the events of that day to say anything.

“Besides, I hear you’ve done quite well for yourself Genma,” Ino returned to grinning at him. “Doesn’t your lovely new wife already have a baby on the way?”

“Yeah,” Genma said, taking a large swig of some kind of spirit. “Congratulations.”

The smile that had been plastered upon his face only a few minutes ago now seemed nowhere to be found.

“Going out for the night, Shiranui-san?” Hinata asked, not so subtly trying to change the direction of conversation. 

His face brightened up so quickly that Sakura couldn't deny that it kind of worked. “You bet I am. Feel like tonight’s going to be a big one.” He patted his glass affectionally. “It’s going to be a good night.”

Sakura couldn't help but to look at the golden wedding ring on his hand every time he raised it closer to his mouth to take another drink. There was something horribly off about this whole thing. Something she couldn’t quite put a name to.

“To the Repopulation,” Genma offered his glass to them, and they all took a swig. 

-

“I’m proud of you, Sakura,” Tsunade said, as they were working side by side on non-essential paperwork in the Homage tower the next day.

The sudden jolt she made almost caused the pile of books over Sakura’s head to spill downwards and knock her out. “What?”

“You heard what I said,” the older woman grumbled. “I heard about your marriage.”

“I haven’t even given you your invitation yet,” Sakura complained with a frown. Damn know-it-all Hokages with their information networks.

“Considering I have to providing the marriage licensing for every ninja coupling, it can’t be that much of a surprise to you.” Tsunade hasn’t even looked up from her pile of paperwork. “Sasuke seems like he’s in a hurry to conduct this marriage.”

Sakura focused on playing with the edge of the paper she was currently filing. It was, in that moment, incredibly important to get it exactly right. “Hm.”

“He’s still on his trial period, but I think you’ve made the right choice.” Tsunade showed no sign of stopping her onslaught. “Well, I would have done this anyway, but especially so considering Sasuke’s circumstances. You’ll be receiving a visit from your informant tonight. God knows you’ll need it.”

That was enough to make Sakura pause in her work. “What? My who now?”

“Your in-form-ant,” Tsunade said, as if Sakura was a child. “Come now, Sakura, you know what that means.”

“I know what _informant_ means,” she bounced back, frowning. “I’m asking what on earth I need to be informed about.”

Tsunade merely sighed. “Well, believe it or not, shinobi as a whole aren’t always the best source of expertise where this whole ‘stable family environment’ and ‘relationship’ thing is concerned. Letting the success of Project Repopulation go entirely down to chance is just not an option. So you’ll be getting a little welcome pack on the whole married life thing in a few hours. Consider it my wedding gift to you.”

“Shishou, I could just ask my mother.”

That was true enough. Sakura’s parents were mind-numbingly normal and miraculously still together. If anyone could give her fairly good advice on family life, it would be her, and probably not whatever socially-lacking lackey Tsunade had roped into doing the job.

“You’re a shinobi, Sakura,” Tsunade replied, her voice carrying a strong sense of finality. “You’re not like your parents. And how badly can a little meeting go?”

Sakura had the haunting feeling that she was just about to find out.

* * *

 

Waiting for her mysterious visitor, Sakura decided, felt a lot like waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

At one point she had actually considered leaving out some sort of snack for them. It only felt considerate, really, when she was making her own dinner for herself anyway. If they arrived while she was eating, what kind of host would just let them starve as she shovelling various rice dishes into her mouth?

But in the end, nine o’clock arrived and there had been no sign of anyone coming to visit her. And then ten o’clock. And then eleven. As soon as it reaches the stroke of midnight, Sakura couldn’t help but to begin to feel rather annoyed. Of course her informant would be late. The forces of the universe did just love to comply against her in little things like that.

So, she decided, Sakura felt absolutely no shame in clambering out of her ninja gear and into some old threadbare pyjamas. If her visitor wasn’t going to pay her the courtesy of turning up on time, she didn’t quite fancy trailing around in anything that wasn’t made of at least three layers of rich cotton. 

She was lying in bed as the clock hit midnight.

“Sakura.”

The shiver that ran down her spine was almost violent enough to make her tumble head first out of bed and onto the floor. Now that would have been embarrassing.

But as she raised her head from the pillow, Sakura’s eyes met a sight that she hadn’t quite been expecting. Kakashi was sitting, relaxed, on the end of the bed that she was lying in. His eyes didn’t even have the decency to be fixed upon her, instead seemingly inspecting the ‘cute looking’ fruit stickers she’d plastered on the side of her bed frame when she was nine. Great.

“Kakashi-sensei?”

“Yes?”

“Why are you in my bed?”

As if he finally deemed her bed frame acceptable, his eyes came up to meet her own. “I thought Tsunade would have told you. She usually gives some warning.”

Something in Sakura’s brain clicked that hadn’t quite clicked before. “Wait, hang on. You’re going to be my informant?”

“Mm. Looks that way.”

It was ridiculous. This whole situation was actually insane. Whatever Project Repopulation pretended to be, Sakura decided that her new pet theory was that she was stuck in some kind of weird-ass genjutsu that pulled inspiration from her fever dreams. Firstly, in that moment she had to question every leadership decision that Tsunade had ever made. Of all the people to pick as an informant, somebody to give guidance on marriage and sexual relations, her shishou had picked weird, porn-reading, enigmatic Kakashi Hatake. Her ex-teacher. Sakura despaired.

“You’re late,” she snapped, for a lack of being able to come up with any legitimate reason why this could not be possible. “It’s past _midnight_.”

“Are you going to tell on me?” he asked, raising a lazy eyebrow.

Sakura just made a face at him. 

Even though it was dark, she caught his hands moving in the dark as he fiddles with his own flak jacket.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice sharp. 

“It’s hot,” he explained with a shrug, as if that entirely justified him beginning to strip off while _in her bed_. “And we’re going to be here a while.”

“Well, it’s late,” she said again, but when had that ever stopped the man?

“So,” Kakashi began. “Project Repopulation. I’m assuming you know the basics.”

“The basics?”

He tilted his head. “Well, yes, you know. How did you describe it? Getting busy.”

Sakura was all of a sudden incredibly glad it was so dark because her cheeks were beginning to turn a shade of red that far outshone the pink tones of her hair. “Shut up.”

“Sa-ku-ra,” he replied, his voice annoyingly sing-song. “If you aren’t prepared to talk about sex frankly, we can’t have this conversation.”

Oh god. Oh, _god_. The full extent of what all of this meant only seemed to hit her in full at his words. She was going to be talking, in excessive detail, about _sex_. With _Kakashi-sensei,_ the man who had been taught her as a twelve year old. About her _own_ sex life. If there was an option to dive face first out of her own bedroom window without Kakashi inevitably catching her in time, she would have taken it in a heartbeat. 

“You’ll be expected to reproduce with your chosen mate,” Kakashi said, his voice as coolly neutral as if he was reading facts about trains. “In your case, Sasuke.” The hesitation was barely audible, but there was a pause in there. “Are you a virgin?”

“Kakashi-sensei?”

He shook his head. “Sakura, we’re both professionals here.”

Of course she was a professional. She was professional enough to be able to throw a kana through the right eye of a moving target at any speed. She was professional enough to do all of Tsunade’s left over paperwork without even complaining (that much.) She was professional enough to ignore that fact that she’d seen a sizeable numbers of shinobi penises when treating people at the hospital and still look her clients in the eye that next day. But if ‘professional’ meant confessing to Kakashi, _Kakashi_ , that she’d never been with a man… he could stick that idea right up places that his shruriken wouldn’t ever reach.

“Yes,” Sakura said, refusing to look at him.

“Yes what?”

“Yes,” she repeated, grinding the word out between her teeth. “I’m a virgin.”

She was twenty-two years old and still a virgin. It wasn’t that… it wasn’t that she was ashamed, exactly. A good chunk of her teenage years had admittedly been caught up in waiting for Sasuke to come back. And even after those feelings had faded somewhat, there had been a war to fight. While that had driven some people to lose their virginity as quickly as possible, understandingly, she’d only been interested in getting stronger. She had to be.

So explained in full, her reasons made sense. But somehow telling Kakashi she was a virgin still made her feel like nothing more than the 12-year-old Sasuke obsessed girl who’d only recently left the academy, only dressed up in shinobi gear. 

Whatever reaction she’d expected Kakashi to have to that, it wasn’t just an almost imperceptible nod of the head. But then she supposed half of his face was still covered by that mask, so if he _had_ been laughing at her she wouldn’t have even seen it…

“Here’s some light educational reading on the subject,” he said, passing her a thick red tome. 

She took the offered book, turning it over in her palms. “This is _Icha Icha: Valentine_.”

Kakashi just looked at her, as if daring her to challenge his choice. “Yup. Is that a problem?”

It was petty of her, admittedly, but for just a second Sakura wants to make Kakashi feel just as wildly uncomfortable as this entire situation had been for her.

“Well, I think _Icha Icha: Flower_ would have been a better choice,” she said, smiling sweetly. “There’s more build up and description behind all of the love scenes. _Valentine_ just tends to be flowery prose.”

It only lasted for a second, but Sakura refused to miss the silent ‘what the fuck’ that made her ex-sensei’s eye twitch. “No, Flower is too mechanical.” It wouldn’t quite count as a suitable revenge for the whole conversation, but his voice was delightfully weak. “I’d argue that sex should be more than just the sum of its parts, Sakura.”

On the list of the weirdest conversations Sakura had ever (or would ever) have, this certainly ranked up there.

“But when we’re talking basic sexual education, first and foremost it’s important to know how things work,” she continued, not quite sure how or why she had found the strength to press on. Mostly, she decided, it was to avoid the inevitable awkward pause that would follow all of this.

“When teaching children,” Kakashi rebutted, “that might be true. But you’re one of Konoha’s finest medic-nin. I had assumed you knew the actual mechanics of _getting busy_ already, Sakura.”

Sakura wasn’t sure what she thought was weirder: that he had a point, or that he’d specifically picked out porn tailored to what she might need. Either way, she handed the book back to him with a shake of the head.

“Anyway,” Kakashi said, stretching his long, black-clad arms. “This is just a welcome visit for us to get to know each other. Or, it would have been, if not for the teeny tiny oversight of that step having been completed quite a few years ago.”

“Wait,” Sakura interrupted. “We have to have more of these?”

“Glad to know my services are appreciated.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, resisting the urge to groan. “More check-ups? Even when I’m clearly about to comply with this whole stupid mission?”

“I wouldn’t call them check-ups.” Apparently having decided himself to be too bare, Kakashi began to wrap this flak jacket back around his torso. “Both the Hokage and the council find it beneficial to have a source of guidance and advice around for shinobi involved in this mission. That’s all it is. I’m simply here if you need me.”

While Sakura had no idea what on earth kind of situation she could ever imagine herself getting into where she’d desperately need Kakashi’s ‘expert’ sexual and romantic advice, she could probably safely say she’d rather set herself on fire. Twice. While pierced with ten thousand kunai.

“Why on earth would you volunteer for this gig anyway?” she asked, unable to hide her bafflement.

He probably got some sick enjoyment out of torturing Sakura like this. She wouldn’t even be that surprised. The man already had no shame, reading porn in the street like some sort of public deviant. He was different from normal, decent people like Sakura who kept her raunchy porn firmly hidden in the confines of her own apartment, thank you very much.

“It seemed a lot easier than having to contribute to the birth of a child,” he said, shrugging his shoulders.

_Oh, of course_. The bastard. She should have known that Kakashi would have wriggled out of the conscription one way or another. Somehow she had never been able to see him marrying and settling down just because Tsunade had told him to. And even if he was having to do the most gut-wrenchingly embarrassing task in the world, it was still a big step up from whatever Sakura was on the verge of falling into.

“You cheated,” she complained. “I can’t believe this.”

The visible part of his cheeks twitched, suggesting something that could almost have been a smile. “Somebody had to do this. It just so happened that there were some perks that came with the job.”

Oh, and so he had the absolute audacity to be smug about the whole thing as well. She could have almost strangled him.

“Can’t you help me? I could inform people too,” she said, trying not to sound quite like she was pleading despite the fact that it was probably true. “And unlike you, I actually have proper medical knowledge. It would work.”

He paused. “I don’t think that would quite fly past the council.”

“Why not?”

“You won’t like it,” he replied, but she continued to scowl in determination. “You’re capable of bearing a child, Sakura. Think about it. That’s the most valuable resource available in the village right now.”

Kakashi had been right. Sakura certainly didn’t like it. What had been the point of winning the damn war, getting Sasuke back, and surviving the whole thing to boot? If they were sticking her in some kind of archaic society anyway… then it all seemed so incredibly pointless.

“So,” Kakashi continued, as if he hadn’t just sweepingly sealed her fate in one blow, “you’ll be getting semi-regular visits from me, which I’m sure you’ll be thrilled about.”

Well, not that Sakura would mention it, but at least this way she would maybe see him more than occasionally and maybe for longer than a simple passing in the street. His conspicuous absences from their Team 7 get-togethers after the war made more sense considering his new role, but they were still absences.

“And we’ll be discussing?”

“I’ll be updating the Hokage on how well the Repopulation is going throughout the whole village. So I’ll need to know everything.” Kakashi, after what seemed like had been several hours, finally stood up from her bed. “I’m sure you can work out what that means for yourself.”

_Everything._ So that meant the horrific embarrassment she had just gone through would be repeating itself in the near future, then. Again, Sakura decided she had to start giving serious weight to the theory that she was stuck in some weird looping genjutsu that was determined to suck out her very soul.

“I… I wish I could run away from here,” Sakura said, her voice barely above a miserable whisper. “I wish I hadn’t have to make this choice. Even for the village.”

For a second, she was sure Kakashi didn’t hear her. She’d only whispered. But he paused, stuck half-way in limbo between her bed and the window.

“Sakura, you’re young. Being stuck on D-rank missions for a decade or so until this all blows over won’t kill you.” Kakashi scratched the side of his head. “You don’t have to do this.”

Even as the words left his mouth, Sakura hoped he knew they weren’t true. That was not the life she had chosen. Even as a girl, she’d foregone becoming a civilian and chosen out of her own free will to become a shinobi. There was no turning her back on that, not ever. Which meant that there was no turning her back on this mission either.

“You know I do,” she murmured, not quite caring if he was still listening or not.

A moment of stillness passed between them. There was clearly something playing upon Kakashi’s mind from the way he continued to hover. And yet after what could either have been seconds or hours, it was over and no words had actually left him.

Kakashi strolled to her window, raising a hand. “You know, there are people you can talk to if you need help with this. It's nothing to be ashamed about. And you have some good friends.”

From the way he was fiddling with the window latch, the list of 'people she could talk to' definitely appeared to be a Venn diagram exclusively including 'people that weren't Kakashi Hatake'.

“Mm.”

“I mean it,” he said, a little more softly. “This… is bound to be hard for you.”

It was possibly the most sensei-like advice that he had ever given her. Who knew being pressured into marriage and children by the powers that be would have been such a good way to get the man’s attention? If only Kakashi had been so willing to talk to her like that when she was twelve. Twenty-two was cutting it just a bit late.

“Goodnight, Kakashi-sensei,” Sakura said, gently but still firmly.

“Goodnight, Sakura.”

She rose from her bed to close the window shut. Kakashi was gone.

-

Even as she clutched the invitation in her hand, it didn’t quite feel real.

_You are hereby invited to the wedding and union of:_

_Sasuke UCHIHA_

_and_

_Sakura HARUNO_

_22nd February_

It was her name on the invitation. The entire slip of paper looked more than something Sakura would have imagined in a fever dream when she was a kid rather than something tangible and physical and right in front of her. But here it was. An invitation to her own wedding.

Showing the invitation to her parents had been an experience, to put it at the very least.

“I can’t believe our darling baby girl is getting _married,_ ” Sakura’s dad said, pacing up and down the living room. “Married! She’s getting married, Mebuki.”

He grabbed the wedding invitation from Sakura with a swipe, holding it so tightly that Sakura was sure it was beginning to tear in several places.

Her mother merely sighed deeply. “You’ve said it enough already, dear.”

“I just can’t believe it.” Her dad showed no sign of stopping his restless fidgeting. “After all these years of you telling us you aren’t even starting to date yet, Sakura, and now you decide to come to us with this. Not that I’m not pleased, but…”

“It’s a little sudden,” Sakura’s mother finished. “But Sakura is an adult now, dear.”

Sakura could understand why they were worried. Maybe it was the civilian blood in her was right in sniffing out the fishiness of this whole situation, putting her on edge. Perhaps all of her shinobi-born friends were happy enough to get married without a second thought, but that hadn’t quite been how her parents brought her up. She hadn’t even had to time bring Sasuke home to them for dinner yet.

“Yes, well,” her dad said, with a slight huff. “At least you’ve talked about this Sasuke boy before. He hasn’t just come out of nowhere.”

It was almost a miracle that her parents didn’t keep up with the shinobi news - and hadn’t as long as Sakura had ever remembered. How they even knew who the Hokage was would have been a miracle if Tsunade’s face wasn’t sticking out of a huge bunch of rocks that were almost impossible to ignore. But if they’d somehow found out even an inkling of what was inside Sasuke’s extremely large folder in the Hokage tower’s office…

…well, her father would have been ripping more than just a wedding invitation.

* * *

 

Sakura had _so_ been worried about timing moving too quickly when she’d been alone and failing to do anything to further the Repopulation. Well, things had certainly changed. Now she was engaged to Sasuke Uchiha and terrified that time was moving even faster. 

She barely saw Sasuke in between the proposal and the wedding.

“He’s really busy,” Naruto had told her once, giving her a supporting squeeze on the shoulder. “It’s the first time since… well, it’s the first time since he’s returned that I’ve seen him actually scowl at me and not just sort of sit blankly. This is amazing, _dattebayo_!”

The nine-tails shaped blob had then cried on _her_ shoulder for a good twenty minutes. The coffee shop owner had started giving them both some weird looks after that.

Sakura kept herself busy in two different ways. When she was not at the hospital, she was with Hinata and Ino. And when she was not with Hinata and Ino, she was at the hospital. Being busy the majority of the time did manage to take her mind away from the future, but it didn’t make anything go any slower. The hours racked up into days and every day marked Sakura closer and closer to everything she couldn’t avoid.

And before she knew it, the day arrived.

“You look so beautiful, Sakura-chan,” Hinata said, her hands deftly fixing a single daffodil into Sakura’s hair. “Um, I know I saying this, but your kimono is gorgeous.”

Sakura ran a hand downwards, her fingers finding the rough textures of the many frills she’d been stuffed into. “Oh, ah, thank you. I think it’s supposed to be traditional.”

She hadn’t been given a chance to pick out her own kimono. Maybe it was stupid to admit finding ‘the perfect bridal outfit’ had been something she’d been fantasising about since she had been very young, but it was still true. Maybe if she’d pushed hard enough, she would have been given the chance to try on some different options… but as it was, Sakura had been keeping herself so busy that she’d been too concerned with pushing this day out of her mind to fret about such minor things. And the kimono she was wrapped up and bound into was meant to be the traditional Uchiha bridal kimono, the _uchikake_. Who would have guessed the Uchiha clan was so big on ruffles, tassles, and frills?

“I’m surprised you even fit into that thing, Forehead,” Ino said, pulling and tugging at the sharp edge of the kimono. “But… you do look very beautiful. I’m sure you’ll knock that boy dead.”

Another girl appeared at the door, tapping impatiently. It was time.

The safe confines of Sakura’s dressing room only seemed more and more inviting the further she got from the door. But then, it must have been normal for everyone getting married to feel at least somewhat similar to how she was feeling now. That was why ‘cold feet’ were a thing, wasn’t it?

Except it wasn’t just Sakura’s feet that were feeling cold. Every part of her had turned to ice.

It all happened so quickly. As soon as she stepped outside, all eyes fell upon her. That meant there was no turning back, whether she wanted to or not. So many people had come out to see the wedding today. Her eyes flickered past all the seated figures, looking desperately for something without any particular purpose. When Naruto saw her begin to walk to the altar, he waved wildly and whistled as if she was some kind of Konoha celebrity. Everyone from the Konoha Eleven was there, spread out into different rows. She even caught a glimpse of Yamato and Genma, sat side by side. The former gave her a cheerful thumbs up and the latter provided nothing more than a wink. They were all… so excited for her.

If they could be all so happy about this, then Sakura could at least smile through it. They were a vast seas of smiling faces and beams and waves and—

And Kakashi. The odd one out, as usual. It wasn’t that he wasn’t smiling: his single eye was creased upwards in a cheerful arch. But there was something off about it. Maybe Sakura wouldn’t have been able to recognise it if she wasn’t feeling the same way, but from this distance Kakashi looked like the only person in the room who might be feeling anything other than sunny faced glee.

The music seemed to intensify as she neared closer to the altar. Sasuke stood there alone, in a suit that looked almost perfectly akin to the type she used to imagine him wearing when she was in her early teens. Perhaps it was that the pure white kimono she was wearing or that she was being haunted, but Sakura seemed to float towards him as if she was a ghost.

It didn’t last as long as she had expected. When Sakura walked up to the altar, her hands outstretched, she was Sakura Haruno. When her hands leave the smooth marble, she has become Sakura Uchiha. _Mrs_ Sakura Uchiha.

The rest of the day was only a series of dreams, wrapped together in her family and friends cheering her name and laughing. Sakura smiled and laughed too. That was what you were supposed to do at your own wedding, wasn’t it?

It was when the day began to draw to a close that she was dragged back to earth. A carriage had come to a stand still outside the reception, waiting to take her away. Dusk had started to fall by the time they were both clambering inside.

“And where are the lovely couple going?” the driver asked, looking only to Sasuke.

“The Uchiha estate,” came Sasuke’s - her _husband’s_ \- quick reply. 

And then they were moving forwards. As they turned the corner almost immediately, Sakura couldn’t even look back. She was going to her new home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Thank you all for being so sweet!

The world, Kakashi decided, had gone insane. Or it was on its way to the point at the very least.

Just what had happened to the good old days of getting married as a last hurrah right before a mission where one of you would most likely be chopped up into little pieces by the end of it? Hell, what had happened to reluctantly wedding a girl just because your clan told you they’d stop giving you nice, shiny things if you didn’t? Those were the good old days, he mused. Everybody had either been dead, deeply unhappy, or eternally a bachelor. Kakashi had wormed his way into the latter category and he was quite happy there, thank you very much.

Now he was caged in this new world. A world, it seemed, where the powers that be had once again decided to make his role that of a teacher. Maybe it was a different kind of teacher but somehow he suspected that he’d be no better in this new role than he had been in the last. The job certainly wasn’t even close to anything suited to his abilities. He could perform competently- above competently, some might even say - when thrown into an S-Class mission and made to fight for his life. Talking to shinobi about the birds and the bees? The very idea of it had been _ridiculous_ up until it was his only option. 

During the war against the Akatsuki, he probably would have laughed himself to death if somebody had told him he’d be stuck playing messenger as soon as the war was done. Sure, the idea of a week or two off where Kakashi didn’t have to talk to a single other human being and could read _Icha Icha_ in peace had been nice to think about. Spending months trailing after people specifically so that he would have to make awkward conversation with them? Not so much.

Except when Tsunade had come to him, there just had not been much of a choice.

“You’re late,” she’d snapped at him. He had appreciated the Hokage’s finely honed ability to now turn that particular mark into more of his own personalised greeting than any actual expression of surprise. “We have a lot to discuss. And it’s confidential, so close that damn door.”

That hadn’t set off the warning bells. Confidentiality had been almost assumed on every mission he’d taken of late. Wars had a tendency to do that. 

But then… well, then Tsunade had told him about everything. And he understood, even if it was very soon that he damn wished he hadn’t. What the Hokage had told him inside that room would eventually change everything. And whether he liked it or not, Kakashi had become another cog in the moving machine.

Regardless, that was in the future. For now he almost had a regular 9 till 5 job that consisted very near solely of tracking down the shinobi seemed medically capable to help the village as they went around their business. It was all so dreary. He’d contemplated getting Pakkun to run around Konoha doing it all for him, but to his dismay he realised that as soon as word would get back to Tsunade she might be more disapproving. 

Kakashi sighed, slipping his book back into its pouch and turning to his next victim. “So you’re expecting?”

The girl nodded, her teeth nibbling delicately at her lower lip. “Um, yes, I think so. I haven’t… I haven’t bled.”

Kakashi pondered for a second whether the reason the Hyuuga girl hadn’t bled had something to do with all the blood rushing up to her face instead every five minutes. It seemed quite the scientific miracle that she wasn’t severely anaemic. 

“I see,” he said, looking Hinata Hyuuga - Uzumaki now, he supposed - up and down. “And how far along would you say you are?”

“A couple of weeks,” the girl squeaked out, her voice little above a murmur.

Kakashi made another noise that only consisted of the ‘mm’ syllable. “Right. Who would have thought Naruto had that kind of thing in him?”

He didn't expect her to answer, but somehow that renders the girl’s face an even more dangerous colour. Kakashi had to remind himself that he probably wasn’t actively supposed to kill his clients with blood loss. Still, he had to find at least one source for entertainment during this job.

“Okay,” he said, passing her a series of forms that had become crumpled from being shoved in his back pocket for so long. “Fill these in and report to the Hokage tower. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Oh, ah, yes,” the girl said, her gaze scrambling to look through the thick wad of worms. “Um, if I do need help, how do I contact you?”

Before she could even begin look up, Kakashi knew to have vanished.

God, he was getting old. It had only been five minutes ago that Naruto had been a headache inducing 12 year old set of causing chaos in his life. Now the kid was a fully grown headache inducing man who had just about fine-tuned the art of disruption. A man with a pregnant wife. Kakashi shuddered to think about it.

In fact, all three of his little students weren’t so little anymore. He’d barely looked away for a few moments and now they were a trio of adult shinobi and not the three little angry puppies they had seemingly put him in charge of babysitting so long ago. And despite his best efforts, Kakashi couldn’t help as of late feeling somewhat _bad_ for a certain pink-haired kunoichi of all people.

It was simply that everybody and their mother already lived in a permanent state of despair and anxiety about just what the two boys in the group were going through next. If either of them had a bad day, Kakashi expected it would make national news. But Sakura, on the other hand, couldn’t be seen the same way. She wasn’t the ex-rogue nin returned in chains and she wasn’t the war hero Jinchūriki who had brought him back. She was Sakura, the girl he’d ignored as a child in the face of training the two powerhouse boys he’d been given. The girl that could now smash every bone in his body to bits with her little toe and had admittedly gotten there without any help from him.

The girl that looked like she had been on the verge of tears as she’d asked him if there was any way to escape the Repopulation.

It hadn’t even been the Hokage that had first broken the news to him when assigning his clients for that day. That would have been too light a shock on his poor old heart. It had been Genma, absolutely wasted, appearing outside his door at 3AM on a cold night. By all rights, it shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise at it really did. Kakashi had already seen Naruto married off. The remaining two of his students having to make the sacrifice shouldn’t have felt so outlandish. Especially when Sakura was a girl that had devoted a good portion of her life to chasing Sasuke’s love. It wasn’t like their union should have been entirely unprecedented.

Still, something just didn’t feel quite right about the whole thing. It annoyed him that he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what.

Was it the morality of the thing? He didn’t think so, not _really_. Kakashi Hatake understood better than anyone that sometimes _shit got hard_. Tactically, the Repopulation was almost a necessity. With

By the time Sakura’s wedding came around, Kakashi was no less perturbed. Was this just how it felt to begin growing old?

* * *

 

It was funny to think, really. Caught up in the whirlwind and suspense of the actual day, Sakura had almost forgotten about the wedding night. Namely that there would be one at all.

If there was anywhere she’d always dreamed about losing her virginity, it was the Uchiha household. It wasn’t as far from what she’d always imagined as Sakura had expected. The luxurious high ceilings, the traditional architecture, the long stairways… all of them appeared somehow or other to perfectly fit into the vision of her future that Sakura had held growing up. She wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that, honestly. The only real difference between then and now was the blurred sight of Sasuke’s guard outside just outside the window, watching over the house. She hadn’t quite expected that as part of her old fantasies. 

“Wait for me upstairs,” Sasuke said, gesturing to the upper level, before pausing. “I won’t be long.”

Ordinarily Sakura would have grumbled about being told so frankly what to do, even if she was still in the stage of being quite glad Sasuke was here and speaking to her at _all_ rather than in some far-off land plotting against the Leaf. But maybe there was something in the air that night because instead she simply nods, focusing on the sound of her own footsteps as they hit the marble flooring.

The white sheets of the king-size bed looked especially appealing to her as she walked into what looked to be the master bedroom. After the day and a half she’d gone through, it would be nice just to slip under the sheets and finally rest. Sakura had slept more risking her life on S-Class missions than she had over the last few weeks.

But that wasn’t what the bed was for. She knew that.

How did one dress, knowing their part newlywed husband, part childhood love slash, and part ex-rouge enemy of her village would be coming up the stairs in a few minutes to take their virginity? Was there a handbook on this kind of thing? For a moment, Sakura almost regretted not actually asking Kakashi about this kind of thing while she’d actually had the chance.

And then she almost brought herself to grin for the first time that day. Could a stupider, more awkward idea ever have existed? And really, speaking honestly, would the man have been able to tell her that much about sex to begin with?

It wasn’t a topic Sakura had previously done much thinking on, admittedly. Kakashi-sensei and _sex_. Kakashi-sensei, her teacher, and _sex_. Kakashi sensei, the man who had gone to parent-teacher conferences with Sakura’s mother when she was a genin, and _sex_. The idea itself seemed almost absurd.

But, Sakura recalled, she hadn’t really had to be the one doing the thinking. Looking back, she’d certainly heard enough comments from Ino to know some people might potentially (maybe, hypothetically speaking) have the capacity to begin to find her former sensei attractive. Sakura had clamped her hands shut over her ears and yelled with disgust at the time, but there had a been a few… comments made in her presence by Ino’s rather vivacious mouth. Comments that may have even included the words ‘ass’ and ‘damn fine’. And, even worse, she remembered a good handful of the Konoha girls listening agreeing with contemplative nods.

“Pleaaaaaase,” Ino had said, flicking her hair back with a deviously pointed grin. “You have to act all disgusted just because he was your sensei. Open your eyes, Sakura. My life changed for the better the day I learned how to appreciate Asuma-sensei’s upper arms in the middle of a drab mission.”

Still, even if that kind of thing was true, it only meant that other people might have found Kakashi-sensei somewhat tolerable in the looks department. There was still the small matter of his entire personality and attitude towards other human beings to ward away any form of sexual contact. For all that porn that he read, the idea of him ever acting out any of the dramatic scenes or cheesy lines in real life was laughable - almost hysterical, even. The idea of Kakashi pressing some young damsel up against the wall and insisting that he _must have her now_ … 

“Sakura?”

Ohfuckohfuckohfuck.

The door creaked open and Sasuke’s figure emerged from the darkened hallway. His eyes fell upon Sakura’s form, sitting passively on the bed, but his face remained entirely blank. She wondered what he was thinking and hoped it certainly wasn’t at all wondering why the fuck his new wife was in their bed on their wedding life pondering intensely upon the sex life of the man who had taught them when they were twelve. Mostly because she wasn’t quite sure herself how that had happened to begin with.

But more importantly, she was suddenly conscious of everything: the feel of the silk linen sheets beneath her legs, the dingy lighting that meant half of her husband’s face was covered in shadow, the fact that she was still wearing her bridal kimono. Whatever protocol the situation most urgently must have required Sakura didn’t seem to be following it, because Sasuke stayed stood frozen in the doorway as if he had turned to stone.

“What do you want, Sakura?” he asked, finally, after what felt like an eternity.

That wasn’t a question that she had been asked often enough recently. “What?”

“In regards to tonight,” Sasuke said, as if that explained everything. “How would you prefer this evening take place?”

She didn’t quite understand.

“You… you want me to say it?” Her voice came out far more squeakily than she imagined Sasuke had ever expected Mrs Sasuke Uchiha to sound like. “We’re supposed to do what all married couples do on their wedding night, aren’t we?”

If he was just doing this to taunt her, he’d have several pillow thrown at his face. With chakra strength.

But Sasuke’s face didn’t even twitch. “I’m leaving it up to you. Obviously… obviously I won’t force you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

Like the man could make her do anything she didn’t want to. At the end of the day, these days Sakura held the strong suspicion she could likely beat Sasuke (or anyone) in an arm wrestling contest. But it was his asking that was marvel. The idea that she finally had a choice in her life as of late was an alien concept at this point.

“But your bloodline…? Sakura said, frowning. 

Hadn’t that been half of his proposal to her anyway, apart from assisting in the Repopulation? Sasuke wanted to restore his clan, but the clan certainly couldn’t be restored without an heir. And an heir certainly couldn’t be made without… without what Sakura could give him. She really didn’t have to be a medic nin to know that part.

“My bloodline can wait,” Sasuke said, frowning with a deepness she hadn’t quite expected. “You have to be comfortable with this.”

Comfortable? The idea that she could be comfortable while scared out of her mind seemed impossible. But… it wasn’t Sasuke that was scaring her. It was the future.

Sasuke began to turn away his body. “I will sleep somewhere else for tonight—“

“I consent,” Sakura said, cutting through his words. “I consent to this. I do.”

After all, this had been the exact moment she was waiting for since she was twelve, hadn’t it? Maybe Sakura had grown past that, but this was her life now. She was Mrs Sakura Uchiha whatever she said or did. And the whole reason she’d agreed to this whole thing in the first place was a direct order from the Hokage herself. At the end of the day, wasn’t this just another mission?

Something felt as if it was stuck in her throat.

But at her words, Sasuke finally began to move. He strode away from the doorway, the only thing separating them, and stopped only when he reached the foot of the bed. There was a moment of silence as they looked each other dead in the eye.

He was so beautiful. He’d always been beautiful. It was the dark hair and the dark eyes that were an absolutely lethal combination in Sakura’s case. There was just something about them that had always left her wanting just a bit more. Even after everything, Sasuke’s eyes still hadn’t lost their allure.

So when he leaned forward to kiss her, Sakura bent herself forward to his touch.

His lips were cold. That was something Sakura soon found out, as his hands came to rest upon her shoulders. She’d noticed how cold Sasuke’s skin was when sparring as children, of course - she wouldn’t not notice any detail about him no matter how trivial - but somehow her brain hadn’t expected his skin to be cold even now. Even so, he was a surprisingly good kisser. His form was so perfect that Sakura had to wonder if he’d ever kissed a girl before.

Sakura’s own education felt as if it must have been a bit sloppy in comparison. She’d kissed Naruto once before, even if she didn’t like to think about it. That had been way back, though; she must have been nothing more than a silly sixteen year old wondering if she’d just been mistakenly ignoring Naruto’s feelings all along. As it turned out, the wet and sticky washing machine that Sakura had exposed her mouth to that night meant the answer was _probably not._

Sakura had experienced a few more kisses after that but none of them particularly meaningful. One night before an S-Class mission during the lowest point of the war, she’d made out with some random stranger in a bar for what Ino had cheerfully described the next morning as a ‘good fifteen minutes’. Not that Sakura remembered much of it.

But two kisses weren’t very many at all as a starting point. Not when you were about to consummate a marriage with Sasuke Uchiha. Sakura decided to focus most of her energy on not disgusting him with weird tongue movements… although, with Sasuke also having been along the prestigious alumni of having kissed Naruto Uzumaki, perhaps that wouldn’t have gone down so badly.

She was somewhat glad it was so dark in the room when Sasuke asked her to disrobe. Partially because she was about to be very naked very quickly and partially because a devastatingly potent blush had begun to make its way across her nose and cheeks like a rash. If Sasuke had been able to actually see it in a setting with proper lighting, she wasn’t yet quite sure of his thoughts upon having sexual relations with a human cherry tomato.

Sakura had been expecting at least some reaction to the first time a man laid eyes on her while naked. While her brain hadn’t quite got as far along as working out exactly what she would have liked that reaction to be, anything at all would have been nice at this point. ‘Oh, Sakura, what delightful breasts you have’, maybe. Or ‘Sakura, I really enjoy the small mole on your left butt cheek’. She hated to say it, but her standards were not particularly insurmountable. 

But Sasuke didn’t say a word.

Instead, he silently tossed his own clothing to the floor with speedy precision. Even in stripping himself, Sasuke managed to be enrapturing to watch. She had seen a fair bit of body before, of course. Training and injuries tended to make such things a lot harder to avoid, no matter how much she had fretted and swooned over every glimpse back then. But now he was fully naked, his pale skin somehow catching gleams of soft light Sakura knew her own body didn’t.

His knees positioned themselves on the bed, shuffling closer and closer to Sakura’s own body. She had to resist the urge to do something stupid like suck in a deep intake of breath or gulp sharply at the sensation. This was it. The moment everything had been leading up to.

“Turn around,” he said, motioning for her to spin.

“What?”

“It’ll be easier if we do it like that,” Sasuke said. “You’ll see.”

The man spoke as if he just assumed that she was a virgin. Even if it was true, Sakura felt a flash of annoyance at the insinuation that she couldn’t have screwed the entire village while he was away just because she felt like it. She absolutely, definitely, one-hundred percent _hadn’t_ : but still. She was perfectly capable of it if she really put her mind to it, Sakura decided.

But she turned around upon command anyway. At the end of the day, Sasuke probably did have more experience than her, whether he was willing to talk about it or never would.

He pushed inside of her far more slowly than the rough manner she had been expecting. Even with all of the manuals on sexual copulation that Sakura had read over the years in the medical library, she still wasn’t quite prepared for the feeling. If there was supposed to be pain, like the manuals had said there was a chance of, she certainly wasn’t feeling it. But then the manuals had also said that there would be untold pleasure eventually and there wasn’t any of feeling of that either.

As Sasuke’s thrusting began to increase in speed, she could have swore she heard his breathing grow heavier. The idea of being able to cause any kind of physical reaction from Sasuke hadn’t quite crossed her mind before. For someone who’d once focused upon changing her entire appearance to match his tastes, Sakura wasn’t quite sure how she felt about it. Above all things, it was simply _weird_.

And then, with a heavy jolt, it was over. She turned around, wondering if Sasuke had stopped for a half-time break, but he was already on his feet and pulling his clothes back over his chest. The speed of his escape was more impressive than anything. Almost like he hadn’t just taken her virginity.

“That’s… that was it?” Sakura asked with wide eyes, only slightly bewildered.

Something in Sasuke’s forehead became hard and jagged. “What do you mean, ‘that was it’?”

Whoops. Now her face grew red out of sheer embarrassment (which was marginally better than the reason it had been red earlier.)

“I was just checking,” Sakura replied in an attempt to save the whole exchange, beginning to feel quite pathetic. “I wasn’t— I wasn’t trying to say anything.”

That didn’t seem to lift Sasuke’s harsh look from his face. Not one bit.

When he had dressed himself fully, there was moment of doubt as Sakura wondered where the man was going to sleep. Surely it was normal, wasn’t it, for a husband to share his bed with his wife? From all the trashy TV and soap operas she’d powered her way through in the past, it appeared to be the natural thing to do. The done thing.

But Sasuke only gave her a firm nod before vanishing into the night, leaving her lying alone upon the cold bedsheets. And strangely enough, it didn’t take her terribly long to fall asleep.

* * *

 

The next month or so went by in a similar pattern.

It turned out that the specifics of Project Repopulation were a lot more annoying than Sakura had originally believed. While Sasuke had been allowed to return to active duty as soon as he had married her, the universe worked its usual magic and dictated that everything had to be just that little bit harder for all the shinobi capable of bearing children out there. Even as Sasuke was given the chance to chase missing cats through fields and do odd jobs for the village for hours on end, she wasn’t allowed to take up her old life again until she had conceived a child.

The pigs.

As the weeks went by, she began to see Sasuke less and less. They still shared a house together but at times it felt almost as if she lived alone. His missions became busier, probably to compensate for the fact that a good chunk of the female shinobi population were currently out of action. When Tsunade allowed Sasuke to take his first C-Ranked missions, even after everything, she had claimed it was due to the trust the ex-rogue nin was starting to build up. Sakura suspected the actual reason had a bit more to do with desperation. While Sasuke still had his guard trailing around after him, these days the man just seemed to act as extra back-up when it came to missions rather than any real form of security. 

While she hadn’t been quite sure on whether it would, to her surprise the sex had continued after the wedding night. Every week on a Tuesday night, Sasuke would appear in her doorway wearing only a robe and ask a single question: ‘do you consent?’

Then she would agree and he would turn her around. Their strange ritual would begin. 

She’d wondered, sometimes as they would couple together, whether Sasuke was doing it all out of any actual lust for her. He certainly didn’t seem to have a problem… _getting it up_ when it was time for their Tuesday night activities. But then the man had always had such excellent self control anyway. If he saw it as his duty to impregnate her, then she had her suspicions that Sasuke could have performed his just admirably even if he actually found her as arousing as a turnip.

It wasn’t like she was disappointed exactly - not with Sasuke, anyway. It was more like she was disappointed in the human species as a whole for building the idea of sex up into something beyond what it actually was. Everyone had been a conspirator in this. The poets who wrote of tender kisses and spiritual satisfaction. Ino, who had nudged her and winked at her and told her that sex was the absolute _bee’s knees_. Even Jiraiya for publishing _Icha Icha_ and having made her wonder whether sex was a worthy muse for writing novels and novels worth of pages. They had all fooled Sakura and it had taken having the experience for herself to understand it.

If the sex was bad she couldn’t quite say. It wasn’t like she had much to compare it to, after all. But then, surely most sex was pretty much all a bit of the same thing anyway? It wasn’t like Sasuke was failing to perform the basic motions behind it all. And it just wasn't very Sasuke like to be bad at anything at all (except maybe processing his own emotions, but that was more of a shinobi thing) so it could have just been her own fault for not enjoying any of it. Maybe things were different in _Icha Icha_ , what with all of the touching and the fondling and the desperation. But this was real life. Sakura had learned that now. 

And Sasuke was never actively cruel to her. She knew unquestionably that the second she might ask him to stop and leave that he would. It was just… at the same time, she knew there was no words she could have uttered that would ever get him to stay. She wasn’t powerless. But she certainly held no power over him.

At least she had her friends to keep her company. Ino and Hinata were stuck in the same position, although admittedly Naruto (and even Sai) seemed to be home a good chunk more than Sasuke was. Sakura had never quite had as much free time on he hands to while away the hours. So when they weren’t sitting around in Sakura’s how too large home, they were training.

Around three months had passed since she was still allowed to be Sakura Haruno. It was a stifling hot day at the height of summer so Sakura had been pretty stuck for things to wear. In the end, the thinnest material she’d been able to find consisted of a tank top she used to wear to bed as a child and the only pair of red shorts she had left that didn’t press against her thighs too tightly. The snorts she got from Ino upon her friend’s eyes falling upon the mis-matched ensemble were not unbearable when Sakura was the only one who wasn’t going to risk melting to death on the training grounds in the burning heat.

“I can’t believe you’ve been sitting out all day, Hinata,” Ino said, grumbling even though she was almost entirely out of breath. “If I did that, Sakura would have been yelling at me hours ago.”

“Firstly, I don’t yell,” Sakura said, frowning even if maybe she did suspect there was some truth to it. “Are you feeling okay, Hinata?”

Hinata opened her mouth, paused, and then closed it again. But she certainly didn’t look ill. Her skin had a shine to it today that only made Sakura _slightly_ jealous. If this was how the Hyuuga girl looked when she was ill, by comparison Sakura felt like her own sick days looked like _Attack Of The Killer Slug: Volume Six._

“I’m okay, really,” Hinata insisted, nodding along. “I think I just need some time to rest.”

Sakura wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand. Another match with Ino then, even if the other girl didn’t look so enthusiastic. 

They had been sparring all morning for a lack of better things to do. Even if this stupid Repopulation meant she couldn’t actually go on any missions, it still seemed liked a good idea to keep herself in shape for one just in case. With most of the men in the village slowly being allowed to actually go and serve the village now, there hadn’t been too many people willing to come out and dodge Sakura’s punches.

“Well, I’m sick of this,” Ino pushed, the quitter. “I’m taking a break.”

Without a sparring partner, the whole ‘sparring’ part of the day seemed to come along a lot more slowly. Part of Sakura was tempted to join Ino and Hinata as they rested under the largest oak tree in the training grounds, but the idea of just sitting around and waiting didn’t seem very appealing to her. It was a lot easier to push past all of these days of waiting when she didn’t actually have to think about it very much.

So instead Sakura settled for angrily throwing her kunai against the back of every training post within reach, not quite caring if the weapon hit or missed. It was something to do.

“If that’s the way I taught you to throw, Sakura, then I didn’t do a very good job.”

Her eyes snapped upwards. 

“Kakashi-sensei?” she asked, knowing already that it was him.

“Do you need me to teach you the correct forms again?” he asked, and Sakura would have put money on there being an annoying upwards twitch of the lips under that mask. “We can go over some of the basics together. It’ll be like old times.”

“Shut up,” she said, positioning herself a bit more upright. “I wasn’t actually trying to hit anything.”

“Oh?” Kakashi raised an eyebrow. “Then what were you trying to do?”

Her lack of a clear answer only served to hit on a few more of her nerves. The effect Kakashi had upon people to make them feel like an absolute idiot within thirty seconds of starting a conversation could be quite amazing, she mused.

“Nothing,” she replied, trying to look as visibly annoyed as possible. “Anyway, it’s none of your business.”

The attempt to reclaim her pride didn’t go quite as well as she had hoped. Kakashi simply looked somewhere along the lines of amused.

“Ah, that’s where you’re wrong. You are my business.” Kakashi’s eye moved in a way that she again could almost have guessed was giving her a lazy smiled if that mask wasn’t in the way. “At least for this afternoon. Do you have a free moment?”

Sakura looked back at Ino and Hinata, lounged beneath the tree. For some reason she strongly suspected Kakashi wouldn’t find their busy afternoon ofquite acceptable as an excuse.

“Fine,” she said, glumly. “Let me just get my bag.”

He nodded. “We can take a walk.”

That could only mean one thing. If Kakashi wanted her to take a walk, then he wanted her as far away from her friends’ large and listening ears as was possible. And if he wanted a private conversation, then there could be no doubt that this was strictly relating to the very same topic she was trying to push to the back of her mind.

They settled on a park bench after walking what seemed like a reasonable distance away from prying eyes. There was something off about how serene it all seemed, with the freshly cut green grass and the sunny blue sky. As if this was just an ordinary day like the kind she’d used to have in that sweet spot between the war ending and the Repopulation beginning. Sakura wondered if she’d ever have a day like that again.

Kakashi flopped down onto the wooden seat. “Are you pregnant?”

Sakura’s mind nearly caved in on itself. “Kakashi-sensei!”

Sure, the man had never been one to mince words. She specifically recalled one time she’d come to show a new genjustu she was learning to him as a fresh faced twelve year old and he’d torn her technique to tiny, shredded pieces. But to ask her something like that outright? 

“It’s a simple question,” he said blankly, swatting an insect that came too close to his eye. “Have you taken a test recently?”

Sakura had thought that this whole arrangement was awkward at best. Now she hated it with a fiery passion so strong she hoped the sun would collide with the park bench they were sitting on before Kakashi would expect a reply.

“Yes,” she admitted finally, looking at her feet.

“You’re pregnant?”

“No!” She probably hadn’t needed to deny the accusation with quite that much force, but… “Not pregnant. I took a test. It came back negative.”

He frowned, and Sakura was vaguely aware of there being a few more lines on his forehead than when he’d made the same expression a few years ago. “Are you sure? When did you take it?”

“I’m a medic nin,” she said, trying her utmost best not to snap at him. “I think I know how my own body works, sensei.”

It shouldn’t have been quite as sore as a spot for her, really. Sakura _knew_ she was talented when it came to practising medicine. She shouldn’t have to even give weight to the opinion of a man who was only famed for being about to stick point objects into people rather than extract them safely out of them. But it had always been so typical of Kakashi to pay no attention to her actual strengths even when they were right in front of his face.

Sakura had half expected some continued resistance, but the man simply nods. “I see. Not pregnant then.”

Silence fell like an anvil between the two of them. Kakashi made no attempt to move from his position, but wasn’t that it? His whole job was just to check up on her and evidently he’d done his duty.

“You’ve slept together though?”

“Sensei!”

Honestly, this was it. This was the moment she died and ascended to an afterlife where there were no teachers to ask her about her sex life.

“Does that mean you haven’t?” he asked, not so subtle in his goading as he probably liked to think he was.

“Yes, whatever,” Sakura spat out, glaring daggers at him. “We’ve slept together. Are you happy? Did you want to congratulate me?”

Somehow Kakashi has the audacity to look like she isn’t livid at him, with his body simply lent back against the seat and his head titled upwards to give him what she was sure was a stunning view of the sky above. Sometimes she genuinely wondered if the man was an alien.

“Well, I would bake you a cake but I think I’m out of sugar,” he said far too pleasantly. “But about your lack of pregnancy…”

Sakura narrowed her eyes. “Yes?”

“I’d advise more sex,” he continued cheerfully, as if he was recommending her a new brand of shuriken or a particularly good book. “Your last medical examination states pretty clearly that you’re highly fertile. It’s been, what, four months? Five?”

“Three,” she said sharply. It was like he was deliberately goading her… but for what? Knowing Kakashi-sensei, probably just a reaction. The bastard.

“And how many times would you say you have sex a day?”

That time, Sakura didn’t even have the capacity to react like she was shocked by his completely inappropriate question. She settled for staring him down like he was every member of the Akatsuki rolled into one and trying to take the last slice of cake.

“A day?” she asked tentatively, after a moment had passed.

Kakashi’s eyebrows rose. “Fine, let’s say a week. How often?”

Sakura considered, in that moment, running away and living as a missing nin in some forest in the woods. It wouldn’t be clean but she’d make do. Maybe she’d even get a pet fox. 

“Once a week,” she said, grinding out the words from beneath her teeth.

She didn't even have to look at Kakashi to imagine the amused look on his face. The bastard really _was_ enjoying this. If he dared to comment, she would send him flying.

“Well, you’ll need to increase that a fair bit,” he remarked, nodding his stupid head up and down. “The more the merrier, really. As often as you can.”

Sakura’s self control was getting some intense practise in today. She supposed she could never again say that Kakashi didn’t challenge her as a teacher.

“What positions are you using?” he asked, again as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “Perhaps that has something to do with it.”

“P…” Sakura stumbled. “Positions?”

“Mm.”

“Just the normal one?” she offered, and then immediately wished she hadn’t.

“Sakura,” Kakashi said, looking her up and down. “I thought that we’d established now that you’ve also had the pleasure of sampling Jiraiya’s finest work. I have the utmost faith that you know this.”

Funny. It was possibly one of the few times that the man had held faith in her.

“Fine,” she conceded. “I guess you would describe it as…”

“As?”

“Umdoggystyle,” she spewed out, hoping that she would choke on her own words.

Kakashi yawned. “Sorry, what was that?”

He was the worst man that she had ever met. There was no question about it.

“Doggy style, _sensei,_ ” she said, grinding out the last word in the hopes of making him feel just as embarrassed as she was. From the lack of remorse in his one blank eye, Sakura doubted that it had worked. “I hope you’re happy.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Only that particular arrangement?” Kakashi asked again, actually looking rather curious. 

“Do you have a problem with that?”

“No,” he said, almost thoughtfully. “I had just thought that you might.”

And just what was that supposed to mean? If Kakashi was trying to imply that her sex life was a limp, miserable failure… well, he could stick his nose elsewhere. Whatever his mission contract covered, she was quite certain that particular issue was well out of his jurisdiction. 

“Anyway,” he said blithely, as if that made everything better. “Hopefully you’ll conceive within the next month or so. Then you’ll be back onto active duty in no time.”

If ‘no time’ was nine months and left you with an entire child to take care of, then maybe she would believe him. 

“And how are you doing?” he asked.

“Do you honestly care?”  


Kakashi ran his fingers across the edge of the bench as if he was inspecting it. “Well, it’s on my list of questions to ask.”

“Oh.” She shouldn’t really have expected anything better from the man.

“But I’m not heartless,” he added. “Of course I care. We’ve known each other a long time.”

That was an understatement. It felt like her whole life.

She did know that he probably felt some form of attachment towards her, even out of just familiarity. Ten years was a long time. But Kakashi was hardly the type that anybody could ever have a natter with about their problems over a cup of tea and a tub of ice cream. If Sakura was ever in trouble during battle, she had no doubt that Kakashi would have her back at all times. But she had the sneaky suspicion that if she tried to actually discuss her vanishing husband and her boredom and frustration at this whole situation… well, Sakura had a sneaky suspicion that the man would coincidentally remember that he’d forgotten to turn his over off. 

“I’m fine,” she says, not quite sure herself if it was a lie or not. “Can I go now?”

“You won’t spend any more time with your poor old sensei?”

“You’re neither poor nor old, Kakashi sensei,” Sakura said, batting away his teasing. “If you want to go hole up in your apartment and read for the afternoon, then I don’t mind telling anyone who asks that we were discussing the mission for a few hours.”

Her genius plan to escape this hell of embarrassment seemed to please him, because Kakashi gave her a crinkle of the eye as he stood up.

“I knew there was a reason you were my favourite student,” he said, stretching like a cat who had just been awoken from its slumber. “We’ve covered most things regardless. Just keep having plenty of sex and keep taking pregnancy tests.”

One of the weirdest orders Sakura had ever been given, but she nodded anyway if only to get the man to retreat. Kakashi gave her a silent salute with one hand before vanishing into a puff of smoke.

* * *

 

It took a lot of thinking after their conversation, but Sakura returned to the Uchiha mansion determined. Maybe Kakashi-sensei had been unnecessarily crude and inappropriate about the whole thing but there was one thing the man was right about. The sooner she was able to get pregnant then the sooner Sakura could return to active duty. And the sooner she returned to active duty was the sooner that she got her life back.

So she had returned with weapons. It had taken her hours and hours of shopping to find the things she needed but somehow she’d kept at it. The shopping bags held price labels that would have made her eyeballs spring out of their sockets only a few months ago, but now Sakura was the matriarch of the Uchiha clan… even if it currently only did include two people. Her individual assets weren’t getting any larger due to a suspiciously glaring lack of proper missions, but as she’d soon discovered, there was a certain thrill to putting things on the Uchiha tab and then just not thinking about them. Not that Sasuke would likely care.

The weapons Sakura had selected for this particular job had been tricky to locate. Finding bras in her size that both matched and complimented her slightly below average chest size without making her look like a small child was a tricky job. Finding both a bra and matching underwear that did the same job? Almost impossible. But somehow Sakura had managed. 

The set that she had returned with was something to absolutely die for. The tone of red she’d picked out was the type of red that managed not to clash horribly with her pink hair and yet manage to contrast against it. Ordinarily she might have found the bra a bit showy with its push-up mechanism, but in this case it just counted as a tool that was vital to the success of Sakura’s plan. And to be honest, it made her look _pretty good_. 

Now, the plan hadn’t quite formed concretely in Sakura’s head at this point. But from what she could gather, it went something like this:

  1. Look irresistibly sexy.
  2. Make Sasuke fall in love with her.
  3. Failing that, make him just really want to sleep with her.
  4. Conceive a child.
  5. Return to normal life.



Mentally sketched out as a five point plan, the whole thing seemed rather foolproof. If their once a week encounters just weren’t cutting it then she would have to go above and beyond what Sasuke was offering her. Maybe he had all the time in the world to run around on low ranked missions and take a laissez faire approach to this thing, but this was Sakura’s freedom. She was going to have to take it all into her own hands.

He was going to be returning from his C-Rank field trip (okay, mission) tonight if things had gone well. That left Sakura with a few hours to arrange things perfectly. She had always been good at organisation, even if the general approach of Team Seven (with Kakashi’s influence mostly) had been to wing it under all circumstances. Leaving things to chance now just wasn’t an option.

So what exactly did a girl do when she was trying to seduce her husband?

There was one thing Sakura had going for her, she thought. If nothing else then she’d watched a lot (like, a lot) of rom-coms. For a while, she’d even had a weekly movie night with Ino where they’dsit with several buckets of low-cal popcorn and cheer on cue for the hot, dark-haired serious actor playing the main love interest and boo for any of the other options. Their movie night dates had become somewhat less regular since Ino started getting regular move-like romantic action in real life more often that not… but Sakura still watched them on her own on lazy nights. There had to be something that she’d picked up after all of those hours.

Candles! Candles seemed a great start. There had to be some around here somewhere. The Uchiha mansion was surprisingly well stocked, if a little dust-covered in places. She’d discovered fairly quickly that Sasuke didn’t seem to quite care enough about what she did to stop her investigating places that previously looked to have been untouched for over a decade. Just as she had thought, there was a welcome supply of all kinds of knickknacks in the basement, candles among them. Sakura carefully chose the dark, cherry-scented ones - after all, the muddy red wax seemed to match her choice of lingerie. This was working out perfectly.

It was a little awkward to get changed into the lingerie right there and then. With nobody around, Sakura just felt rather lazy lounging around in (even admittedly rather expensive) underwear. But she couldn’t exactly deny that the ensemble made her lack-of-curves into something vaguely resembling shapeliness. Staring at herself in the mirror seemed something of a novelty. But eventually she decided that her body would be best placed upon the master bed, ready for her husband’s return.

Sakura waited.

She waited an hour. And then another. And then possibly an hour after that - at that point, who was really able to keep count? She waited long enough that her stomach reared its screeching cry and demanded a food sacrifice from her mouth. It must have been quite a bit past dinner time… and still no Sasuke. She’d remembered him saying he’d be back before dinner at some point, she was sure. Hopefully the mission hadn’t gone too awry.

And then the door creaked.

Slow, precise footsteps came from downstairs. Sasuke was back. This was it. Her plan would begin from now onwards. The steps changed pace, growly slightly more impatient, and Sakura’s ears pricked up as the sound changed from that of someone stepping on wooden floorboards to that of somebody climbing a set of marble steps. It was time.

“Sakura?”

“In here,” she said, feeling suddenly quite shy. “I’m in the bedroom.”

He’d come to look for her. That was unusual. The vast majority of the time he would creep around her presence, always gone just as Sakura arrived and always arriving just as she had left. Seeking out direct interaction with her seemed like a sign that her plan was working before it had even started.

The door slid open.

There was a pause. A very long pause.

“You’re semi-naked,” Sasuke informed her, rather blankly.

“Oh, yes,” Sakura replied, nodding her head. At one point she’d had some kind of speech prepared, intended to entice him into joining her. Now her mind went blank.

“Okay,” Sasuke said. “I just wanted to tell you that I’m leaving again so there’s no need to freak out on me and cause trouble. I only came back to pick up a change of fresh clothes.”

His tone was not the tone men used in rom-coms when they found a girl dressed up for them in their bed. It was more in tune to the tone of a man who’d realised he’d run out of milk after boiling the kettle for his tea: confused and a tad exasperated. This wasn’t part of the plan.

“You don’t want to stay?” she tried, sitting up slightly. “I thought we could… spend some time together.”

If she was trying to be one of the more particularly sexy girls in the movies, she would do something irresistible now like run a supple hand down her smooth body and cup her own skin. As it stood, she was now feeling more decidedly _horrifically awkward_ than sexy, so the best Sakura could manage was a slightly shaky smile and a shuffling of her legs.

Sasuke just blinked. “Is there something you need?”

Either Sasuke was as oblivious as Naruto or she was about to feel a lot more silly than she’d previously bargained for.

“We’re married,” she offered, trying not to let the raging fire that had started in her cheeks spread. “I was just thinking that maybe we could…”

“Yes?”

“Y’know,” Sakura urged, trying not to let the frustration at his wilful ignorance seep into her ‘time to seduce’ tone of voice. “Make… love?”

Sasuke stared at her as if she had grown seven heads and was trying to summon a demon.

“It’s not Tuesday,” he said, frowning. “Did you check the calendar?”

He may as well have just hit her with one of the candlesticks she’d placed around the room.

“I know,” Sakura said, breathing deeply. “Wouldn’t you… like to, though? With me? Today?”

It wasn’t the most romantic question in the world, but this was all that Sakura had been left to work with. 

“Are you sure you’re feeling alright?” Sasuke asked, still not coming any closer than the doorway. “Are you finally pregnant or something?”

A vein positively ticked in Sakura’s temple. What was up with stupid men asking her whether or not she was pregnant today? Did she look especially bloated today or something? She hadn’t thought so staring in the mirror but twice in one day seemed like an awfully annoying coincidence. 

“Why would you think I’m pregnant?” she said, allowing her eyes to narrow. The ‘sexy wife’ act had already started to slip.

“Pregnant women generally have especially volatile hormones,” her husband said, sounding quite bored at the biology lesson he really hadn’t needed to give. “You’re acting quite irrational.”

“Irrational?”

“It’s not Tuesday,” he said dully once again. “And I have to go.”

All at once, Sakura realised just how large of a moron she was capable of being. Everything about this was wrong. She was lying in the Uchiha master bed with her legs at an awkward angle, the room covered in petals and candles and all of her hopes. Except now the lingerie that she’d thought looked so good on her seemed to poke and prod at all the wrong places, making her feel more like a giant unsexy bag of tomatoes than whatever she’d been trying to be before. How on earth was Sasuke supposed to want someone like this?

“Sasuke—“

“If you’re getting bored, maybe spend more time helping around the Hokage’s office,” he said, already turning away from the doorframe. “They’re overly busy with assigning mission duties in there. They could probably use help.”

Even if he was meaning to help, it’s only a reminder of their respective positions. Sasuke, her husband and the ex-rogue nin who they’d been debating on locking up until only recently, was allowed to gallivant off wherever he liked and live his shinobi life as was usual. Sakura hadn’t run off with weird snake men even once in the last ten years and she was somehow stuck here spending her days flicking kunai at Ino’s head and debating over what to have for lunch. It just wasn’t fair.

“Can’t we at least try?” she asked.

“You’re of no use to me right now,” he said, his voice only filled with fact rather than with any real cruelty. “Your fertility cycle is at the least fertile point of the month anyhow.”

Sasuke was gone before she could call out again. Half of Sakura was filled with relief which makes some sense: she didn't have to sit in a pool of her own naked embarrassment anymore. At least not with Sasuke’s eyes on her. But the other half of her could only feel the shame that every part of their encounter flared up like a horrible, spotty rash. 

What had she been thinking? It wasn’t like Sasuke had ever shown interest in her, not really. Trying to seduce him now had been doomed to fail just as much as the times she had tried to seduce him as a twelve year year. If it hadn’t worked then, when she would have sacrificed everything for only a few seconds of his time, it certainly had no chance of ever working now. Even if they were married, Sasuke had made it quite clear all along that it was an arrangement with a purpose. To follow the Repopulation’s demands and create an heir for the Uchiha clan. While Sakura’s purpose in seducing the man hadn’t been much less pragmatic itself, she’d still made the awful mistake of trying to incite some passion into their arrangement. It had always been doomed to end in failure and embarrassment. She was well and truly an idiot, wasn’t she?

Worse than that, she’d lost her easy escape route. If Sasuke was going on another mission, who knew when he’d be back? At this rate Sakura would never get pregnant and she’d spend the rest of her life dusting off cobwebs in the Uchiha basement and eating gradually more expensive lunches with Ino until they both got fat and old and died. Which in truth didn’t sound that bad if you were content with a passive life. But Sakura had signed up to being a shinobi at far too young of an age to know anything else. 

Sasuke had recommended she go help out at the Hokage’s office. And as reluctant as Sakura was to take the advice of the man who’d just thrown her entire self-image of sensuality in her face, it seemed like as good a starting point as any to start being a bit more useful even in the face of this mission.

* * *

 

“No.”

“Shishou—“

Tsunade slammed down her hand on her desk, knocking down at least five times as many papers as she could have conceivably signed off in a day. “We’re doing fine here, Sakura. The hospital needs you more.”

“Every kunoichi with a shred of medical jutsu is at the hospital trying to fill in their time as we speak,” Sakura said, trying to argue back the best she could without sounding insubordinate. “The last time I tried to work a shift there, there was only one patient that hadn’t been seen to. And I had to fight to take a look at him.”

The last thing Sakura needed at the moment was to feel more useless. 

“There’s nothing you can do for us here, Sakura,” Tsunade pressed on as if she hadn’t even outlined a valid argument. “We’ve got everything calm and under control.”

An assistant screamed as another pile of papers toppled to the ground at the opposite end of the room. Sakura tried not to wince.

“Legally, I can’t assign you work here when you still haven’t completed your current mission,” Tsunade said, ignoring the chaos of at least five other people bursting in to scream harder at the assistant’s calamity. “You know I would if I could, Sakura. But if I let you work here then I have to let everybody that comes crying through the door.”

Sakura couldn’t quite see the problem with that, really. Except she suspected that with more people there would be a lot more paperwork related collisions. 

“This is insane, shishou,” Sakura pleaded. “I know it’s for the village, but you know that I’d be of so much use doing something more serious—”

Tsunade looked ticked. “Insubordination.”

Sakura was a little more conscious of her raised voice, clearing her throat. “Um, apologies. But you know what I mean.”

She waited with her hands clasped behind her back. Sakura hadn’t really thought this through. She didn’t really need to see Shizune’s nearly tear-striken face at the state of the office to discover that was clearly a bad time.

“Sakura,” Tsunade said, dangerously slowly. “Listen to me. We have no use for you here.”

Her cheeks suddenly threatened to flare up in shame. ‘You’re of no use to me right now’, Sasuke had said. And now the woman who had practically plucked her from the masses and taken her under her wing… was saying just about the same thing. All at once it felt like a mountain had spontaneously arisen on the inside of Sakura’s throat.

“This is hard for everybody still confined in the village,” Tsunade added, a little more softly. “But you have to trust me. There are things… things that must be done. I need you to have faith.”

Faith…? The only thing she felt inclined to give any amount of faith in right now was that things would try their best to get even worse from here on out. But instead she nodded silently.

“Okay,” she muttered barely above a whisper. “I understand.”

So, what then? Would Sakura just have to continue as things were? Sasuke had made it perfectly clear that he wouldn’t get back from this mission for at least a few weeks. That pretty much sealed the deal on preventing any of her plans to escape. That could only mean one thing: everything would continue on in the same monotonous routine that it had for the last few months. No matter how much she protested against all of this, it seemed like the universe was geared up to shut her down.

She took a deep bow and turned to leave.

“Wait, Sakura.” Tsunade gestured for her to stop, sighing. “I… well, there may be something you can do.”

Sakura wasn’t expecting the strength with which her heart leapt in her throat. “You mean it?”

“I didn’t tell you this,” the Hokage said after a prolonged pause. “But there may be… a loophole. You can’t go on missions. But there is no rule in place to prevent you from training.”

Her heart fell back down to the floor and sunk all the way down through every single floor of the tower to the murky soil below.

“I’m already training, shishou,” Sakura said quietly, as if the last shred of hope hadn’t just been ripped from her chest. “Ino and I spar when we can.”

Tsunade shoots her a look. “Not sparring. _Training.”_

“Shishou?”

“You’re still just a chūnin, aren’t you?” Tsunade asked.

Sakura’s eyes nearly boggled at her, wondering how her teacher could even ask her a question like that. Clearly Tsunade-shishou knew that she hadn’t made jōnin yet. They’d had this very same conversation before, during the war itself. Tsunade had been the one to vote against the council on their attempts to promote without examination as a wartime necessity. That had been the very reason why no exams had been held for the last six years. 

“Hypothetically, Sakura,” the older woman said, looking back down at her papers. “If a shinobi of chūnin rank or below were entrusted with mission Repopulation and chose to privately seek the services of a jōnin rank teacher… well, there would be nothing stopping her.” Tsunade was now examining her fingernails very carefully. “She wouldn’t be able to start going on missions again, of course. But the jōnin teacher in question could certainly further her skills quite a bit further, don’t you think?”

Sakura’s world spun like somebody had injected a round of energy drinks into her bloodstream. Of course. Of course! She had known Tsunade wouldn’t let her down, not completely. She never had as a teacher and Sakura shouldn’t have expected her to start now.

“But,” Sakura said, her mind racing faster than her words could form, “there’s a problem, isn’t there? All of the available jōnin are already out on missions to compensate for sudden decrease in the shinobi population.”

Tsunade gave her a pointed look. “I think there’s a certain former teacher of yours who is still in the village. All you have to do is ask.”

Sakura nearly wept. Technically, although they both still spent time at the hospital together, her apprenticeship with Tsunade had been postponed during the war due to a lack of resources. If Tsunade was willing to make time for her again—

“Thank you so much, shishou,” she said, her voice more of a blubber. “I-I’m so grateful! I’ll be the best student ever. I’ll practise harder than you’ve ever seen. I won’t even wince when we have to examine below the belt—“

“No,” Tsunade said firmly. “Not me. I’m far too busy.”

All of this leaping and falling certainly couldn’t have been good for Sakura’s heart.

“What?” she asked. “Then who?”

“I seem to recall you having another teacher prior to myself,” Tsunade mused. “One who currently has far to much free time on his hands all things considered.”

She didn’t mean—

“Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura cried in horror. 

“Is there a problem?”

“He wasn’t much of a teacher to me the first time around.” Sakura couldn’t help the way her face fell. “What more could he have to teach me?”

Tsunade just waved her hand. “Oh, I’m sure you can get some use out of him. Somebody has to.”

"I'm sure he's busy with his current assignment," Sakura pleaded. "There are a lot of kunoichi in the village."

Tsunade wasn't even beginning to show signs of letting up. "Please, trust me. Kakashi Hatake will find a way to wriggle out of everything. I wouldn't be surprised if he was just making clones do all of his dirty work."

If he was, Sakura had to appreciate that as quite the stroke of genius. Maybe she should begin doing the same kind of thing with her laundry...?

The door burst open then and in trailed a legion of harried-looking assistants all looking sheepish.

“What is it now?” Tsunade asked.

The assistants all coughed nervously among themselves before one of them finally stepped forward. “Nothing, Lord Hokage. Just, um, we wanted to report a small incident to you."

Tsunade’s eyes flared with murderous intent. “A small incident?”

“Uh, yes, Lord Hokage,” the one brave assistant said. “Just a minor incident on the second floor. But don’t worry, we’ve managed to get rid of the majority of the fire.”

Tsunade stood up, sending half of her desk flying, and stalked out of the office and down the stairs with fiery footsteps. Sakura hadn’t been formally dismissed but suddenly it seemed like a pretty good idea to leave. Ideally before she ended up flying through the air like the desk had been.

Besides, it was time to catch a Copy Ninja.


End file.
